Friday, July 31, 2009

Game Utilizes Human Intuition To Help Computers Solve Complex Problems

The point is that play has always been at the heart of learning. Usually it's called a "hobby." Sometimes it's called a "passion." But mostly it's tinkering around with reality in the service of playing with it.

The online logic puzzle is called FunSAT, and it could help integrated circuit designers select and arrange transistors and their connections on silicon microchips, among other applications.

Designing chip architecture for the best performance and smallest size is an exceedingly difficult task that's outsourced to computers these days. But computers simply flip through possible arrangements in their search. They lack the human capacities for intuition and visual pattern recognition that could yield a better or even optimal design. That's where FunSAT comes in.

More to the point of the post, people have much better pattern recognition and intuition than computers . . .today.

But consider that IBM built a computer that beat the world chess champion.

As for feelings, when you get a chance think about how you can tell what someone else is feeling? If computers can do facial expressions, how will know they don't "feel?' There are already toy robots that do facial expressions.

Also, I gave up saying "never.' In just 45 years I lived to see a black president of the US. 45 years ago, thousands of black people couldn't vote. And only 15 years there was no Internet or Amazon or Google.

Given how fast science is improving it's really hard to know what's going to possible when you are 35, 45 or 60 years old.

That would be realistic i could see that happening with the chess and all but it is complete nonsense to say that because computers are programmed to make faces but they are not and won't be programmed to feel what a human feels. They will never feel love or happiness nor depression or hate. It just won't happen.

How do you KNOW when a person is feeling love or happiness or depression or hate? Isn't it by seeing what they do?

I'm not really arguing that computers will feel. What I am testing is the idea that if they act as if they feel how can we be sure that they don't? What kind of evidence do we need to know for sure they don't.

In the world of computers there is something called the Turing Test. Do a search to see what I'm trying to say.

Computers can copy things to the exact because of the fact they are computers. This doesn't mean that they are happy or sad. that is from the brain. computers are all machinery. They can copy what we do and what they see but they will never be able to feel. We don't know that because we are not robot experts but i am sure if you ask any robot engineers they will tell you that robots cannot feel.

As i have seen, but nearly all of the time it easy to tell what a person is feeling if you just look at them. If they are trying to deceive you, unless its really good acting then its harder to see their emotions.

When people are thinking different things its quite easy if you concentrate to know what they are thinking. Slight jerk of the cheek or raise of the eyebrow. If you notice everything its easy but if you are not paying attention then its hard to see.

But even if have the talent to notice tiny movements, how can you be sure that your judgment about what is happening in their heads is correct?

There is so much evidence of optical illusions. And even more evidence of what you think is happening is not really what's happening. In the world of detectives they spend gezillions of hours trying to figure out if someone is telling the truth. Even lie detectors don't work that well.

So, how can you be sure? or maybe you can get close alot of the times, but not exact every time?

Its all the same. Men learn the same faces as what they are feeling through their family and friends when they are small. The same faces have been around for a long time and i know basically every face now. Its easy when you see it every day. Its harder when someone lies about what they did because they hide it and your job is to find out what their thinking. I can't read emotions that well but i can see what's wrong when no one else can and i can see that someone is unhappy when no one else can.

A word of advice. Just becuase you might be better at it than anyone else you know, that is no guarantee that you're right.

I'm not saying you might not be right. I'm just saying be very thoughtful before you act on what you believe is true. Most especially when it's someone you only know for a little while. Over a longer period you can get pretty good at predicting what someone will do.

Margaret Mead was a famous anthropologist. As a scientist she tried to understand why people do what they do.

She said something like:What people say, what people do and what people say they do can be three very different things.

Yes i suppose you are right. I have met those who have no idea how others are feeling. I must say its very frustrating. Yes everybody expresses themselves differently through what they say or do or what they say they do. Although for most it is easy to see what people are feeling. Besides if robots got angry then who knows what they could do. Have you ever seen irobot?